[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright so we’re going to start this morning with the Ernestein James case, United States versus James, and as you remember Ms. James is on trial for aiding and embedding the murder of her ex-boyfriend David Augden. And our disputed evidence here is that Ms. James wants to testify at trial that David Augden told her that he had threatened an old man at knife point, he threatended to cut the old man’s eyes out and he stabbed another guy with a pen and he had knocked another person unconscious with a rear-view mirror. Alright Ms. Hall, you’re representing the government here. What’s your objection to this testimony by Ernestein James?

[Student 2, Mr. Corillo] That the evidence isn’t offered for the truth of the matter asserted.

[Professor Hashimoto:] And why is it not being offered for the truth of the matter asserted? What’s your theory of relevance that is not for the truth of the matter?

[Student 2, Mr. Corillo] Well, Ernestein James would have had this reasonable fear of Augden regardless of whether the stories he told her were true.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Why?

[Student 2, Mr. Corillo] The only thing that’s relevant is whether or not she believed him, it doesn’t matter if they’re true. If she believed the stories, even if they were completely false, then she could still have the reasonable fear of him.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Ok so even if David Augden was lying to Ernestein James when he said to her that he had threatened to cut somebody’s eyes out, it still would have caused her reason to be scared, and therefore the statement is not being offered for the truth of the matter asserted. Alright Ms. Hall, objection overruled. What’s your next objection?

[Student 1, Ms. Hall:] I’m going to go to a 403 prejudice argument.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright what’s your 403 argument?

[Student 1, Ms. Hall:] Under rule 403, I would say that the prejudice that the jury is going to have against the victim is going to substantially outweigh any purpotive value of these statements. They’re going to show the jury that the victim was this bad man and want to hold that against him and possibly misuse the evidence to let Ms. James get off just scott free for her crime.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright so we have a 403 objection, a risk of unfair prejudice, this risk that the jury to use Ms. Hall’s words, is gonna dislike David Augden. And we could probably insert some stronger words in there, right, this is a guy whose threatening to cut people’s eyes out with a knife. The jury may well more than dislike David Augden. Alright what’s your response Mr. Corillo?

[Student 2, Mr. Corillo] The purpotive value of this evidence is very high because this evidence directly shows that she had a reasonable fear of Augden. Any prejudice, to the extent there is prejudice, is not unfair, and given that the purpotive value is so high, whatever prejudice there is does not substantially outweigh the purpotive value.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright Ms. Hall, Mr. Corillo says this isn’t unfair prejudice, this is just your basic run of the mill prejudice. What makes this prejudice unfair?

[Student 1, Ms. Hall:] There’s a substantial risk that the jury’s going to misuse the information and hate the victim so much that they’re going to go to jury nullification.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright, and that would be misuse of this information. If the jury takes this information and says look, we think David Augden was a violent person, we don’t care whether Ernestein James believed him or not, we don’t care whether Ernestein James actually was in fear for her life when she handed her daughter the gun, instead we just think David Augden deserved to die. If that’s what the jury does with this evidence, that’s misuse of the evidence and that’s the risk of unfair prejudice that Ms. Hall is worried about.

Watch an excerpt from Professor Dan Coenen's Constitutional Law class.

Video Transcript

[Professor Dan Coenen:]
A great constitutional scholar, Charles Black, called McCullough versus Maryland the greatest of our constitutional cases. I hope in reading the case some of you felt a sense of exhilaration at the extraordinary reflections of Chief Justice John Marshall. Those reflections for example about the nature of the formation of the union are of theoretical significance. But in the end what the case is about is deciding a concrete dispute between real parties. This involves a question of constitutional law, right? It may be congress has the power to establish a bank but so what Maryland has the power to tax it. I mean this bank was not much different from the banks that are in operation today. It was owned by private shareholders, it was in essence a profit making business. Why shouldn’t Maryland have the power to tax it. In part 2 of the opinion, particularly the last paragraph, this word appears, right, operation. The court distinguishes a tax on the operation of the bank from other sorts of taxes. What if Maryland imposed exactly the same tax involved in this case, exactly the same tax, but it applied it to all banks, not just banks chartered by entities other than Maryland. Argue that a law under which Maryland taxed all banks, didn’t single out the bank of the United States for the tax imposed here, that this law would be constitutional, including as applied to the bank of the United States. We’ve learned that there’s a principal floating around here about a limitation on the ability of the state to tax the operations of the National Bank. But operations isn’t self defining is it, what does that mean? What re the operations of the bank? What are the components of operating a bank? Note also that in the context of these discussions I have not stood up here and said, here’s the answer! Is that disquieting to anyone? Yes… because there’s a part of you that wants to think that law is sort of like a gigantic recipe book and what I’ve come to law school to do is to learn all the recipes, so that when clients come to me I can say here’s the answer. But that’s not what law school is. To the extent there are easy recipes, they can be found. You can go to the library and get a book and find the answer. The hard work in law has to do with the process of reasoning that lawyers engage in particularly when they are confronted not with easy cases but with hard ones.

[Professor Dan Coenan:] Why do you say that if Maryland weren’t taxing the issuance of notes and other papers generated by the bank, but instead was taxing land…?[Professor Usha Rodrigues:] The Socratic Method is a manner of instruction that deals really more with questions than with lecture, so rather than the professor standing up in the classroom and telling students, just sort of lecturing as to what law is, it’s an exploration by professor and student, a joint exploration into what the law is and should be. So the professor will ask a question of the student, both to test the students reading and understanding, but also to see, you know, what might happen if the case had come out differently, if a fact had been different, if several facts had been different. So it’s a way of not just learning in a rote way what we call the black letter of the law, but rather exploring how to think like a lawyer, how to change different principals or arguments or facts in order to come up with a richer understanding of what the law is and what it can be.

Watch Professors Erica Hashimoto and Usha Rodrigues discuss the interaction between faculty and students outside of the classroom.

Video Transcript

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright so we’re going to start this morning with the Ernestein James case, United States versus James, and as you remember Ms. James is on trial for aiding and embedding the murder of her ex-boyfriend David Augden. And our disputed evidence here is that Ms. James wants to testify at trial that David Augden told her that he had threatened an old man at knife point, he threatended to cut the old man’s eyes out and he stabbed another guy with a pen and he had knocked another person unconscious with a rear-view mirror. Alright Ms. Hall, you’re representing the government here. What’s your objection to this testimony by Ernestein James?

[Student 2, Mr. Corillo] That the evidence isn’t offered for the truth of the matter asserted.

[Professor Hashimoto:] And why is it not being offered for the truth of the matter asserted? What’s your theory of relevance that is not for the truth of the matter?

[Student 2, Mr. Corillo] Well, Ernestein James would have had this reasonable fear of Augden regardless of whether the stories he told her were true.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Why?

[Student 2, Mr. Corillo] The only thing that’s relevant is whether or not she believed him, it doesn’t matter if they’re true. If she believed the stories, even if they were completely false, then she could still have the reasonable fear of him.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Ok so even if David Augden was lying to Ernestein James when he said to her that he had threatened to cut somebody’s eyes out, it still would have caused her reason to be scared, and therefore the statement is not being offered for the truth of the matter asserted. Alright Ms. Hall, objection overruled. What’s your next objection?

[Student 1, Ms. Hall:] I’m going to go to a 403 prejudice argument.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright what’s your 403 argument?

[Student 1, Ms. Hall:] Under rule 403, I would say that the prejudice that the jury is going to have against the victim is going to substantially outweigh any purpotive value of these statements. They’re going to show the jury that the victim was this bad man and want to hold that against him and possibly misuse the evidence to let Ms. James get off just scott free for her crime.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright so we have a 403 objection, a risk of unfair prejudice, this risk that the jury to use Ms. Hall’s words, is gonna dislike David Augden. And we could probably insert some stronger words in there, right, this is a guy whose threatening to cut people’s eyes out with a knife. The jury may well more than dislike David Augden. Alright what’s your response Mr. Corillo?

[Student 2, Mr. Corillo] The purpotive value of this evidence is very high because this evidence directly shows that she had a reasonable fear of Augden. Any prejudice, to the extent there is prejudice, is not unfair, and given that the purpotive value is so high, whatever prejudice there is does not substantially outweigh the purpotive value.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright Ms. Hall, Mr. Corillo says this isn’t unfair prejudice, this is just your basic run of the mill prejudice. What makes this prejudice unfair?

[Student 1, Ms. Hall:] There’s a substantial risk that the jury’s going to misuse the information and hate the victim so much that they’re going to go to jury nullification.

[Professor Hashimoto:] Alright, and that would be misuse of this information. If the jury takes this information and says look, we think David Augden was a violent person, we don’t care whether Ernestein James believed him or not, we don’t care whether Ernestein James actually was in fear for her life when she handed her daughter the gun, instead we just think David Augden deserved to die. If that’s what the jury does with this evidence, that’s misuse of the evidence and that’s the risk of unfair prejudice that Ms. Hall is worried about.

Global Internship Program
View photos taken by Georgia Law students from their travels to14 different countries as a part of the summer 2012 program.

Learn more about Georgia Law's Study Abroad Programs in Brussels and Geneva, China, and Oxford.

Video Transcript

[Student, Jaren Dunning, Oxford program participant:]

Hello my name is Jaren Dunning and I’m a third year law student here at the University of Georgia. This past spring I was able to participate in the Georgia semester abroad program at Oxford University in England. As part of the program we took classes in EU law, International Business Transactions, International Trade Law, and a supervised research tutorial on the topic of our choice. Personally for me I found the most valuable part to be the experience with fellow Oxford students and also my colleagues here from the University of Georgia. The network we were able to establish laterally among ourselves is really something that will definitely carry on in the future.

Hi I’m Shlley Kreimer and I did the Brussels and Geneva study abroad program followed by the Global Internship program in Slovakia. Brussels and Geneva was excellent, I earned 4 credit hours studying international legal issues. We were able to go to lots of law firms including King and Spalding who has an office right on lake Geneva so that’s an excellent way to meet attorneys, and again you’ll make excellent connections.

[Student, Christopher Campbell, China program participant:]

I’m Christopher Campbell, and I participated in the China study abroad program. It’s a very important nation, and a very important trade partner with the U.S. And although there’s always the typical cultural experiences like walking the Great Wall, I think a lot of what the China study aboard program really has to offer is in the opportunity to see how the rule of law is continuing to develop in China.

Advice for 1Ls
Class of 2011 graduates give advice to first year law students.

Video Transcript

[Martina Palatto, SBA Vice President:]

My advice for incoming students would be to always stay on top of your work and be prepared, but don’t forget to have a good time too.

[Christina Hadley, Moot Court:]

Our advice to 1Ls would be to study hard but make sure you have a great time

[Amanda Waide, Georgia Journal of International Comparative Law:]

And make sure you have a lot of friends and strong friendships so that you’re not in it alone because it can be really hard. Good luck!

[Christina Hadley, Moot Court:]

Good luck!

[Alumni John Little, Georgia Law Review Editor in Chief:]

During your first year it’s really important to set boundaries and save time for your friends and family. So be sure to work hard, but also be able to do the things you want to do.

[Alumni Texys Morris, Public Interest Law Council Co-Founder:]

Hi guys! Welcome to Georgia Law, and I just want to encourage to really get involved in your first year. Make the most of all the student activities, especially the public interest work here at UGA Law. And definitely make sure you try to get to know your faculty and staff because they will be there to support you every step of the way, and they will help you to get jobs which is always a good thing! So enjoy your experience, get involved and have fun. Survive 1L year, you’ll do great, and just know that we’re proud to have you as a Law Dawg. Go Dawgs!

I’d like to welcome you to the Hatton LoveJoy Courtroom, home of our award-winning moot court and mock trial programs. The advocacy program offers our students the exciting opportunity to compete intermurally and against other law schools for championships in simulated trial and appellate hearings. My name is Carlos Rodrigues and I’m a participant in Georgia Law’s mock trial program. Our mock trial teams present civil and criminal cases before mock juries that are made up of distinguished lawyers and judges. I plan to be a trial attorney after I graduate and mock trial has helped me perfect my craft. I’m confident, thinking on my feet and in front of a judge and jury. My experience in the advocacy program and my participation in the law school’s criminal defense clinic are providing me with excellent preparation for my future career as a public defender.

[Student, addressing judges in courtroom setting:]

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court…

[Elizabeth Freeman, Moot Court Participant:]

I’m Elizabeth Freeman, and I’m a member of Georgia’s moot court team. Moot court gives students the opportunity to practice arguing appellate cases before a panel of judges that act as the Supreme Court of the United States. Moot court has helped me practice the art of thinking and speaking persuasively on my feet, a skill that I believe will only enhance my career after I graduate. Though I do not plan on pursuing litigation in my future career, I know that my experience on moot court is relevant to my career in global corporate finance. Moot court has taught me to form clear persuasive arguments which will serve future clients well whether that client is an international bank or an indigent defendant. I encourage you to consider our excellent advocacy program and to learn more about Georgia Law.

Public Interest
Find out how Georgia Law students are making an impact in the Athens community through PILC's Community Service Days.